1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to headwear, and, more particularly, to a headwear piece having a crown with an opening to allow passage therethrough of an accumulation of hair on the head of a wearer.
2. Background Art
Typically, headwear pieces have a crown with a peripheral wall configured to accept and embrace the head of a wearer. The crown may be closed, as with a baseball-style cap, or open, as with a visor.
Baseball-style caps and visors are commonly worn on a casual basis and during the performance of athletics. When users of the headwear have long hair, it is common for them to accumulate the hair, as in a ponytail, to prevent uncontrolled movement of the hair.
When wearing a visor, this accumulation of hair does not present a problem as it can be directed conveniently through the visor opening and draped down the back of the wearer's head and neck. However, with a baseball-style cap, or with other styles of headwear having a closed crown, the accumulated hair interferes with the placement of the headwear on the wearer's head. The accumulated hair may be bunched up on the top of the wearer's head, in which event it prevents the headwear from fully seating on the wearer's head. Alternatively, it may be pulled downwardly to project outwardly from the bottom edge of the crown. However, since the base of the accumulation of the hair at the wearer's head is a significant distance above the bottom edge of the crown, a significant amount of accumulated hair resides between the back of the wearer's head and the back of the crown. This precludes proper fitting of the headwear and may cause considerable discomfort to the wearer.
Certain conventional baseball-style caps have an inverted U-shaped opening at the back of the crown and selectively joinable adjusting straps which can be used to vary the effective crown diameter. The U-shaped opening allows the laterally spaced edges bounding the U-shaped opening to be drawn towards each other through the straps without bunching up of the crown. While the U-shaped opening allows the projection therethrough of an accumulation of hair above the bottom edge of the crown, the U-shaped opening is lower than the base of the accumulation of hair where it departs from the wearer's head so that the accumulated hair must extend downwardly a substantial distance before coinciding with the U-shaped opening. This accumulated hair thus resides between the wearer's head and the crown, as occurs without the U-shaped opening. Although the amount of accumulated hair between the wearer's head and the crown with the U-shaped opening is less than with a headwear piece absent the U-shaped opening, the problems associated therewith still exist.
Aside from creating problems associated with fit, the accumulated hair between the wearer's head distorts the crown and thus detracts from the appearance of the headwear.